Providers for breast and cervical screening support services

The National Screening Unit (NSU) has decided on the preferred providers who will deliver breast and cervical screening support services from 1 November 2016.

It comes after the Unit held a fully contestable tender process to choose providers to deliver the $3.45 million of screening support services annually for priority group women. Priority women include Māori, Pacific, Asian (for cervical screening), as well as unscreened, and under-screened women.

“Screening support services make a big difference to a small group of women by providing individually-tailored and practical support, such as transporting and accompanying women to screening, assessment, and treatment appointments,” NSU Group Manager Astrid Koornneef says.

“There’s been progress over the past decade in improving the participation of priority women in breast and cervical screening, but there’s still much work to be done.”

The tender process followed extensive consultation and engagement with providers on the future shape of the services. The consultation highlighted the importance of continuing the service but that the current contracting model was not working well, with issues including poor visibility of outcomes, value for money, and variable performance of providers.

The Request for Proposal was published in November 2015 and saw 30 responses. The responses were reviewed by an evaluation panel, which included an independent chair, a member of the Ministry of Health’s Māori Monitoring and Equity Group, an external Pacific health expert, and representatives from the Ministry of Health and National Screening Unit. This was followed by further evaluation by a panel including Māori and Pacific health and subject matter experts.

The overall level of funding for screening support services is not changing as a result of the RFP process, however funding has been prioritised based on need and targeted to areas where there are high numbers of priority group women, low screening rates, and high deprivation.

Contracts are currently being finalised and the new services will commence on 1 November 2016 for a period of three years. The NSU will work closely with incoming and outgoing providers to ensure there is a smooth transition to the new contracts.